I had been wanting to relive my youth with a small free flight glider, not many kits about in the UK and the few remaining Keil Kraft Caprices and Chief kits etc are being bought for silly prices by collectors.

I spied a 'Hacker Fly' on eBay but missed out but I wondered if I could get a new one? The answer is yes as they are still produced.

Problem is that there were none in the UK, so I contacted the Hacker distributor and they kindly agreed to import some (they needed to make a minimum order of five I think).

Must give a plug to Area51 for excellent service, communication and super packaging of the kit.

The glider is shown on the Hacker website but not much detail is given (I like to see what's in the box!) so I've taken some photos of the box contents for anyone else who might be thinking of getting one.

It's small enough to be built indoors which is my plan for this winter, not sure when I'm going to start, hopefully soon.

I should add a few little details, this glider has an auto rudder and a choice of either a fuse or clockwork dethermaliser. There is also a drawing for what I think is a circle tow hook. I will be fun flying only so won't need this (apart from not understanding how it works!!).

Have made a start on the tailplane as I was itching to get building, some tiny problems but it's going well. Will post some photos later.

I sneaked my small building board into the house and didn't meet much resistance from the 'management'!

The instructions say to start with building the forward fuselage so in my usual style I've started with the tailplane! It's step 12 and it says 'build the tailplane like the wings', I haven't built the wings but I thought I would give it a try.

All the tail parts (including the fin and rudder) are in one bag, opened it up and checked it was all there, I found an extra rib which had me worried, wonder if they include spares for foul ups?!!

There is a parts list including strip wood, have to be a little bit careful as there is similar sized hardwood strip which must be for the wings. All the parts are numbered on the plan but not on the parts, I don't think there's much risk of confusion though (we'll see!).

The tailplane centre is two 9 mm thick ribs glued together, some glue needed to be sanded off, the spar slots have been routed which has left round corners, just needs tidying with a file. A bigger problem with this piece is that it was much thinner than the ribs, I fixed that by adding 0.8 mm balsa to the flat undersurface.

The ribs are very nice with square spar notches that need no attention, they did vary in thickness strangely? Trailing edge is right angle triangle stock, good again, just needed slots filing for the rib tails (there is a sketch on the plan showing how to do this with a file)

The leading edge is pre-shaped (quite soft grade balsa) and the three spars are good.

A Hacker feature is their laminated tip bows (I built their CO2 Tiger Moth before), supplied overlength, trimming them is a one-shot operation so I will be careful! They join the leading edge through a scarf joint, probably the only tricky part of the tailplane build.

Good progress today, the tailplane is finished and I've mostly done the fuselage.

I've opted to fit a KSB dethermaliser timer, I know my dad bought it new in 1977 but it was never used. There is a hole pre-cut for it in the centre ply fuselage, not quite big enough but a quick whizz with Dremel got it fitting nicely.

The rear fuselage has tapered spruce sides, boxed top and bottom with non-tapering 12 mm balsa. I took some care to keep it straight but despite that it's off to one side very slightly.

There is a later step to cut a slot for the fin, I thought it was much easier to cut the slot before gluing the top on.

Some sanding, fit the root ribs and tow hook then it will be on to the wings.

Images

Funny you are building this as I went to some freeflight competitions held near where I live sponsored by a freeflight modeler's club (Willamette Valley Modeler's). It was all pretty cool stuff but being an RC woodie thermal glider sort, the Nordic type towline and circle tow gliders appealed to me the most. At one event, some guy had a box of old freeflight kits, the one and only glider kit was an old "Dragmaster" from the Model Maker company back in the late 70's/early 80's? It didn't have the plans but did have the instructions so for $15.00 I figured I could either figure it out and build it, or study it and figure out how to build something similar(and a LOT sturdier in the wings) or just keep a cool old vintage kit.

Looking at what you have going there, I may look into getting one. Or just scratch-build something like it.

Another great tip Heinz, would never have thought to take the cover off!

I don't think you would go far wrong with one of these Paul, the wing structure looks very strong with spruce spars and spar webs. I like to scratch build but having all the parts cut and all materials provided saves a few trips to the model shop!

I'm not sure but the tissue might be Polyspan or something similar, looks different to paper that I've used before.